>Hitler was here first

He was? Stalin became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922, 11 years before Hitler became Chancellor.

I've never heard that phrase. They're some superficial similarities, but they were very different individuals, in very different contexts, doing very different things. Can you point us to where you heard the term?

As a previous comment stated, Stalin was in power years before Hitler. It is hard to measure how "evil" they were and comparing them is pretty useless. Both of them committed horrendous acts of genocide. Stalin was in power before Hitler so Stalin had a head start, so to speak, on his evil acts. By the 1930's, just as Hitler was gaining significant power, Stalin himself was ordering the mass execution civilians based on ethnic justifications. Stalin's policies lead to massive famine throughout the Soviet Union even before WWII.

Saying they were "not equal due to their beliefs and background" is misguided at best and very harmful at worst. Both Stalin and Hitler were selfish, paranoid men. They were much more worried about their legacy than the well-being of their peoples. Their genocidal acts exemplify that they both were evil men. Genocide is genocide, there is no "nice" way of commiting it. Neither them believed in individual freedom and both of them show that they held true hatred in their hearts.

To answer your initial question, Stalin was a violent tyrant who came before Hitler, who was also a violent tyrant, so Hitler was a second Stalin. Both of them rose to power though violent political suppression. Even before WWII Stalin's atrocities and political suppression were well known. When the academia and politicians noticed that Hitler was doing many of the same things Stalin was, like killing political adversaries, it was fitting to call Hitler a second Stalin.

Your question is based on a false premise.

Hitler was not "first" by any measure.

It's also unlikely that anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge would try and equate him with Stalin on any level but the sheer human suffering caused by both regimes.

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It was a few factors, in addition to Stalin being in power for more than over a decade prior and the higher death count, Stalin also had first cultivated a cult of personality, purged not only critics but allies too, and though Stalin did it in the name of communism's idea of atheism, Stalin and Hitler were both personally antisemitic and targetted Jews. They both targetted Catholics and other religious and ethnic groups for example Slavs for Hitler and Ukrainians for Stalin, both targeted Gypsyies just to name 2 groups. And although Stalin did allow for the Russian Orthodox Church to start operating again openly in Russia during WWII and to continue (Stalin prior to joining Lenin's communist group had been a seminarian and was training to be an Orthodox Church Priest) because it was his religion and he allowed for a worship of it because it was sanctioned by him, while Hitler was building a religion that was based on his vision that would be sanctioned by him. The OSS (the CIAs predecessor) had a lot of knowledge on these men that was shared between themselves and the British and they saw little difference between Stalin and Hitler. Also some at that time actually considered Stalin worse and that working with him after Hitler turned on Stalin in Barbarossa as a kind of a deal with the Devil.

Yeah i'd credit that to america